By John Lamm

Sir Frederick Henry Royce, OBE, was the 1st Baronet of Seaton. He was likely not a tease, but that hasn’t stopped the company he helped found from slowly revealing details on its upcoming Rolls-Royce Wraith. We’ve been told that it will be the most powerful Rolls ever built. That its 6.6-liter twin-turbo V-12 will trigger a world standstill. And we’ve seen a shadow—get it?—of the car’s ear end. And now we have some details on the car’s interior.

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The Wraith’s sitting room will have appointments both “luxurious” and “contemporary,” mimicking the car’s exterior, the release says. As you might expect, bountiful portions of wood will be featured, but not just any wood—it’s an open-pore type Rolls has dubbed “Canadel Panelling.” Areas of the cabin not covered in wood will be finished with the “softest ‘Phantom-grade’ leathers.” The inspiration for the Wraith’s interior, according to Rolls, comes from luxury yachts and the seaside towns in which they dock.

Rolls-Royce goes on to tell us that “the horseshoe sweep of Wraith’s cabin . . . echoes the cove at Le Canadel in the south of France where Sir Henry Royce and his design team spent their winters.” (Have you been to England in the winter? We’d have headed for France, too.) The Wraith also will nod to the company’s history in the aviation industry: The hands on the analog clock are tipped with Blood Orange coloring, like the needles in avionics gauges.

The Rolls-Royce Wraith, yacht- and airplane-inspired interior and all, will make its debut at the 2013 Geneva auto show. The car’s name is plucked from Roller history, and it describes “the ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially seen shortly before or after their death.” In that sense, we suppose using the name is smart marketing in this age where everyone thinks vampires are awesome, but another definition has the word “used in similes and metaphors to describe a pale, thin, or insubstantial person or thing.” A $300,000 car with 600 horsepower (or more) is hardly insubstantial—Sir Royce may have been a tease after all.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Car & Driver